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The Birth of Cheese
We all know the story about the birth of Post-it Notes, so I won't bore you with that one. But did you know that cheese was a mistake gone right as well?

The story goes that an Arabian traveler, who was crossing the desert, brought along a pouch made from a sheep's stomach. In the pouch was milk, a thirst-quenching treat while you're gallivanting around a barren landscape.

In the midst of his journey, he looked into his bag. He found no milk, but instead curd and whey. The sun added the necessary heat and the goat stomach added the necessary juices.

Penicillin is part of this family. When Alexander Fleming set a dish of bacteria near a window in his London lab, he inadvertently allowed mold to contaminate the experiment. Dish of bacteria spoiled.

A failure? Not quite. After looking more closely. Fleming discovered that the contaminating mold was actually killing the deadly bacteria. With the help of a few friends from Oxford, penicillin was on its way.

These are just two of the countless stories in which things gone wrong turn out to be chances for right. You may not be planning a trip across the desert with a sheep's stomach or a few clever experiments with staphylococci, but the same is true of your failures.

When something goes wrong, don't jump into the grave. Look, as Fleming did, more closely at what you've done. Perhaps a secret opportunity is waiting just around the corner.